


Hope

by orphan_account



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-14
Updated: 2016-07-14
Packaged: 2018-07-24 01:22:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7487874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the first time in a long time since the science fair incident Stanford found he was genuinely looking forward to his research. Gravity Falls was everything that he’d hope it be. Mystery around every corner, cryptids waiting to be researched, and he even made a new pal in a yellow, triangular muse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hope

For the first time in a long time since the science fair incident Stanford found he was genuinely looking forward to his research. Gravity Falls was everything that he’d hope it be. Mystery around every corner, cryptids waiting to be researched, and he even made a new pal in a yellow, triangular muse. **  
**

“This is brilliant,” Stanford breathed as he stared upon the numbers and letters and equations that would become his new project. “Absolutely brilliant, how, why-”

“Don’t think about the how and why. Just think about the opportunities. So what do ya say. Will you let me into your mind Stanford?”

A sleek black hand reached to him, glowing blue flames surrounding the palm. Stanford shook it. The hand wasn’t warm, despite the flames, it was cold and small and smooth.

“Please,” he told the triangle with a grin, “call me a friend.”

_“Hey Stanford. It’s alright we don’t need no stinkin’ friends. Just you an’ me and the Stan O’ War. So cheer up. Those losers don’t know what they’re sayin’.”_

Of course, working on the project with just Bill and him would get them nowhere. He needed a mechanical genius. Luckily he knew a guy by the name of Fiddleford Hadron Mcgucket. Fiddleford had some doubts about the project but after explaining it over to him he jumped on board. Soon they were working together like a well oiled piston, pushing each other into completing their goal.

Stanford watched as Fiddleford kissed his wife who brought him his lunch. “See ya later darlin’.” He said into her hairline. He squeezed his wife’s hips, careful not to jostle his wife’s rotund belly too much, “Be careful gettin’ into the car. Do you need me to walk you?” 

Stanford turned away at that, sketching the last details of the portal into his book. Ink stained his fingers.

_The kiss was chaste. Just a meeting of lips. Brown eyes flecked with gold stared at him. “Was that okay?” His answer was another press of lips, harder this time, a little more than just a press, more like an all-consuming force._

“You’re getting distracted Stanford.” Bill said as he twirled his cane. “Thinking about him isn’t gonna get this done any faster.”

“I know.” Stanford said with a scowl. “It’s just-”

“I know,” Bill said sympathetically, “it’s hard thinking about him but at the same time you can’t stop; but we _need_ to focus. After we’re done with this we’ll have all the time in the world. After.”

“Right. After.”

_He betrayed him. Stanley betrayed him. And he thought treasure hunting would make Stanford feel better. Heat seemed to want to suffocate him from the inside out. He pushed Stanley. “Why would I want to spend the rest of my life with someone who sabotaged my entire future?”_

_Everything seemed to pass at a blur. Soon Dad was kicking Stanley out. Stanley looked at him, one hand raised out, “High six?”_

_Stanford let his emotions drive him this one time. He closed the curtain and looked away._

_“Fine. I don’t need you, I don’t need anyone! I’ll make millions and you’ll regret this!”_

_Stanford closed his eyes and refused to let the tears drop. Stanley didn’t deserve the satisfaction of making him cry._

“Stanford,” Fiddleford says on a rainy afternoon. He’s been spending more time talking with Bill lately, meditating morning, noon, and night. He had a constant case of goosebumps from the anticipation. They’re _so_ close.

“Yes Fiddleford?”

“This design, these equations, they’re out of this world.”

“Why thank y-”

“Who are you working with?”

A flash of lightning lights the room inside. The rain pours harder. “Only you of course.”

_It had been raining recently. Huge thunderstorms had come from the atlantic to rain upon the poor New Jersey bastards too unlucky without shelter. Instantly his mind went to Stanley. He had his car of course but what else? No money, no food, nothing to sustain him -_

_Maybe this was why he was on the beach, hoping for some sign that Stanley still existed somewhere among the grains of sand. It was the last he heard of Stanley’s whereabouts, using a metal detector somewhere on the beach- maybe he could spot a glimpse of him and then these feelings; this churning in his stomach like the worst kind of dry-wash can slow itself to a stop._

_There was a lot of debris on the shore. Mostly driftwood, bits of wooden plank. He kicked one under his foot and felt a jolt of something as he stared at it. He searched the beach from rocky shore and over but he couldn’t find the familiar sight of the Stan O’ War anywhere. Yet as he reached the pier he knew what had happened._

_When Stanford came home that night, he did not eat dinner and he did not talk to his parents. He laid his head on the bottom bunk of his bed and stared up at nothing._

“This isn’t what you think it is Stanford.” Fiddleford says desperately.

“Of course it is. What else could it be?”

“I don’t know but your _friend_ made it pretty clear. He’s using you.”

“He likes to joke around-”

“I know Stanford. I know why you’re so invested in this, I’ve been snooping around in your office and I found this-” and here Fiddleford presents something in his coat pocket. It’s a little wrinkled, yellow around the edges and when he holds it in his hands - before he can even properly unfold it - Stanford knows what it is.

“Get out.”

“Stanford I’m only worried about you-”

“ _Get out_.”

Fiddleford retreats without another word, leaving the newspaper clipping on the desk. Stanford stares at it for too long.

_There’s a man on the door wearing an all black suit. He has a hat which he puts over his heart as he addresses his mother. “Ma’am, I’m sorry to inform you…”_

Fiddleford comes back. He says he doesn’t trust Bill but he’s come back to help Stanford. Stanford’s grateful. He needs Fiddleford for the engineering parts that he doesn’t have the time to go to school again for. Soon they’re testing it. The gravitational pull though, is a lot stronger than they both accounted for.

“What is it? What did you see?”

“When Gravity Falls and earth become sky, fear the beast with just one eye.”

“Fiddleford, you’re not making any sense.”

“...I’m sorry Stanford. This isn’t - Bill lied to you.”

“Heh, you’re kidding right?”

Stanford stares at Fiddleford’s blue eyes, still dilated with fear, the yawning blue portal still swirling with mysteries behind its glowing door. Stanford stares at Fiddleford’s eyes and he sees pity.

The feeling it sends through his body is raw enough to send a man to the hospital.

_“We found his body washed up under the pier.”_

_By this point Ma’s distressed crying was enough to summon Dad, “How’d he die?”_

_“Drowned.” The man says looking more mournful than Filbrick Pines who has his arms crossed and a disapproving frown on his face. And that’s it; that’s all the emotion he can spare for his recently deceased son. “By the looks of it he was sailing some kind of boat when the thunderstorm hit. A rickety one at that, we found him clinging onto some driftwood but-”_

_“He didn’t make it.” And Filbrick grunts like he’s_ disappointed _and that’s when Stanford beats a hasty retreat to ~~their~~ his bedroom. There he stands in silence for twenty seconds before he kicks the bedside drawer and then rips everything in his rooms to shreds. He knocks the lamp on the floor, not caring of the loud sound it makes, he yanks at all the drawers and upchucks everything onto the floor, he tears into the bed sheets and let them rip in his shaking hands. He tears and throws and yells and he’s throwing a tantrum, he realizes mid-way through, like a _ child _but he doesn’t care._

_He only stops when he gets his hands on an old photograph on top of their clothes. He’s a second away from ripping it to pieces when he notices what it is. Them. Them before all this **shit** happened to them. It’s them after they first found the Stan O War. Stanley’s smiling all happy and now...now he’s dead._

_Stanford spends the rest of the day in his room. No one bothers him. In the night he holds the photo close to his chests and forces himself not to weep. He doesn’t deserve to cry after what he did to Stanley._

“You lied to me!”

“Ha ha took you long enough Sixer. You know for a genius you could be pretty dumb.”

“That thing never was a time machine was it Bill?”

“It’s not my fault you fell for such an easy lie. I mean what time machine needs coordinates for other planes of existence? What time machine’s settings have symbols instead of dates? Face it Sixer, inside your little human brain you knew you weren’t making a time machine but you deluded yourself into thinking you were to feel better about yourself.”

“Stop calling me Sixer!” Ford roars and goes to punch Bill but the triangle just floats out of the way.

“I’m not the one at fault here Stanford. It’s _your_ fault Stanley’s not here. Not mine.”

His fists shake, his breathing is too fast. “Get out of my mind!” He swipes his arm furiously. 

And then he wakes up.

The photo sits in the dark, hidden by the newspaper clipping. It’s them after they found the Stan O’ War. He holds it to his chest, over his aching, breaking heart, and cries, “I’m so sorry Stanley. I failed you.”

Behind him, Fiddleford gets to work dismantling the portal.

**Author's Note:**

> This was part of a 50 prompts thing on tumblr. This one was the last one someone requested but I was so proud of it I thought I'd post it here.


End file.
